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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24551119">a tome by the name of...</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuriallyCooperative/pseuds/mercuriallyCooperative'>mercuriallyCooperative</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>watchglass full of bread [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha | Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった… - 山口悟 | My Next Life as a Villainess - Yamaguchi Satoru (Light Novels), 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった… | My Next Life as a Villainess (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, look i don't know what to say about this one, magical girl lyrical nanoha a's spoilers, no beta we die like memes, plot relevant setting spoilers for some details revealed in e10 of Villainess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:26:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24551119</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuriallyCooperative/pseuds/mercuriallyCooperative</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>it fell to Sorcier a long time ago. the book is as old as the country, or nearly, back from the days that it was not yet known for the fecundity of magic in the land. before it even had that name, in fact.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>watchglass full of bread [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774249</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a tome by the name of...</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>it fell to Sorcier a long time ago. the book is as old as the country, or nearly, back from the days that it was not yet known for the fecundity of magic in the land. before it even had that name, in fact.</p><p>it is said that the very first ruler was a peasant girl with incredibly powerful magic. its type has been lost to time, but what has not been is this: she was wandering the forest where the capital would one day be, when she found a terrible monster. it had the parts of many fantastical creatures, and a human face, and it sang in a voice that made her ears bleed. and with it, cast aside, pages fluttering feebly, she found a book.</p><p>she took the book and ran for safety and then found the book could speak with her in pastel watercolors made of her dreams.</p><p>she wanted most of all to save the forest she'd known all her life from that terrible monster, and the book promised her in a picture of someone else's memory that it would help her, that it would save this brave girl, and her people, and the land that she so loved.</p><p>"but i have no magic," the girl said, not a protest, but a warning.</p><p><em>‘no magic?’</em> the book replied in ornate symbols the girl could not understand, and pictures that rang within her heart, <em>’but within you is a well of power so great it nearly matches my true master; and within you is a spirit pure of heart and resolve that could stand equal to my knights; and within you is a kind, brave child who would look upon my pages and speak to one such as me. no magic? that is surely not the truth.’</em></p><p>so the girl learned spells of great power from the book; it is said that whatever her element, she learned spells that called the lightning and stone and frost, the flame to edge her blade and the wind to call the storm, and a light that healed. who can say what was the truth? she fed it her power and it fed her its knowledge; and that is what is known for sure.</p><p>and, in time, she gathered dear friends who loved that forest and the country and all the people in it; and that book who was her constant companion; and together, one day, they marched upon the forest where the monster reigned.</p><p>it was a long hard battle, and the forest bled, and the girl bled, and her friends bled, and the book bled ink and magic from its pages; but each of them rose again and again to beat back the monster in the dark.</p><p>and, in time, it died.</p><p>(it died, and only the peasant girl would ever see that death in the pages of her dear book, the scrawled illustration of a grave in the darkness of some endless night. a tearstained illustration, and the words she had come to learn meant 'i am sorry; goodbye'.)</p><p>that was the true beginning of the country that would someday be called "Sorcier".</p><p>in time, the girl, now a woman grown, became known as a great hero; and in time her beloved country made her Queen. and always by her side, was her beloved book.</p><p>("what is your master like?" the woman asks her dear friend, the night of her coronation. she has always wondered about the figure that had haunted the memories the tome had shown her, that first day. since then, the book had always spoken in the girl’s own memories, and later her own language inked on fragile paper.</p><p>there is long silence, before the rustle of pages. <em>'... she called me Reinforce; she called me the Blessed Wind.'</em></p><p>the peasant girl looks out of the new queen's eyes. "... is that how you want to be called?"</p><p>the book spins on axis in the air, a ripple of laughter. <em>’i never told you my name until this very moment, and that's the first question you ask? no; here i am your precious Book. that's all i need to be, while i am with you.’</em>)</p><p>the queen made her capital in the hollow of the forest, shorn clean in that last battle. it was the land she so loved, and the place she had cared for after the fighting had ended. even still, nothing had grown there but long grasses; stubby, sturdy trees; gardens of carefully tended vegetables; the hardiest of wildflowers; and healthy human children full of very familiar magic in their veins.</p><p>("it's not like your magic," the queen murmurs to her dear book, a half question. a rustle of pages. <em>'No.'</em> a brief pause.</p><p>"it's not like mine either." silence. "i've known for a long time. my magic is more like yours than anybody else in this world that i have ever known. that's why you were the first to see it."</p><p>"but since the Night fell, these new children have had the powers of the mages of this land, in measures great and widely spread. as though that power is growing, as the Night once did."</p><p>"is this what magic was like in the land of your master?"</p><p>finally the silence cracks; the woman feels a quiet laugh in the watercolor of the sunset on her friend's pages. <em>'not at all! in my master's country, magic is as rare as you.'</em> a moment passes. <em>'... there was a place before, though. many, many places. in them, yes. magic ran like water, in floods and trickles and rivers, but everywhere, in almost every place and every person, even if only a tiny bit.'</em></p><p>the queen nods. "i wonder if there is any poison in your shadow's final, accidental gift."</p><p>neither of them have any answer to that.)</p><p>(it is the poison of this magic that one might obtain by sacrifice. in centuries, millennia to come, even the least powerful, most mundane of mages has something coiled in them. they may not even be called a mage at all. but if you feed that dark with the end of a life, it shall grow to eat the world, and you with it.</p><p>there has been elemental magic and light magic in this place for the lifetime of everything. Those powers may even have their own shadowy mirrors, native to this place.</p><p>but the thing called 'dark magic' only arrived into the world with the monster, and the book.)</p><p>one day, far from that meeting in the forest, far from that coronation, far even from those first children beginning to toddle in the grass, the queen falls.</p><p>well, that is overly dramatic.</p><p>the queen is human. she is mortal. and, one day, she dies.</p><p>she has chosen her kindest, cleverest child to rule after her, with the support of her other children. they'll be alright. her dear book has promised to watch over them too.</p><p>(a watercolor painting of that peasant girl's grave joins her first enemy's within her dear book's pages. she will never get to see it.)</p><p>the book watches over many generations of the children of that hero-queen, growing old with them. one of their cherished symbols is an emblem much like the one on the cover of that book.</p><p>but, in time, the book grows tired.</p><p>(<em>'ah,'</em> the Blessed Wind says to nobody, for it has been years since any child has come to keep her company. she rests in pride of place in their royal palace, above the throne in its great hall; she was given free reign of the whole of it lifetimes ago, but lately she has felt only a deep, deep weariness.</p><p><em>'i was not completely repaired after all.'</em>)</p><p>(the Tome of the Night Sky was never meant to eat of life force, never meant to drain away magic like a bottomless sea. it had only been meant to collect spells, and travel the worlds with its master.</p><p>but in the many, many, many years since its creation, since the corruption sunk into its defense program, is it any surprise it still bled magic like ink, even now?</p><p>the young peasant girl had fed the book her great magic, just as the book's master had done inadvertently before.</p><p>with no hungering defense program, and no knights to maintain, not even any body but the book itself, that was enough magic to last a long time.</p><p>but not forever.)</p><p>the book speaks to the reigning king. there is something in his bright eyes that is almost like the peasant girl, and it proves true in him; gently he tells the book, the guardian patron of his family and his country for their whole history, that it can depart. it can sleep beneath the earth, or on airy library shelves, or in the ancient tomb that contains every royal child whose life it has ever seen pass it by.</p><p>or it can travel far away.</p><p>"perhaps," the king says, very gently, "you may find your way back to the master you so love."</p><p>(this king remembers the songs the book had sung him in his dreams as a boy. he thinks she has wanted to go home for a very long time indeed.)</p><p>"you have protected us for so very long. we've grown, now, thanks to you. we'll be alright. i promise."</p><p>the king watches his family's dear book fade from view for the last time in his life. he has to smile a little; that was his great uncle's invisibility spell. for all their dear book had taught them over the years, he hopes they've given her a few gifts too.</p><p>...</p><p>the years pass.</p><p>the book finds its way to a hundred library shelves, sleeping away the decades. in a flight of fancy, its cover changes a hundred times to fit its surroundings. in its sleep, it eats the odds and ends of passing mages' power; it has been a very long time since there has been a single mage who could sustain it safely. it does not want to eat the life of anything ever again.</p><p>at last it finds its rest within the library of the east building of a research campus. there are many people here, many mages. that should be enough.</p><p>(far, far, far further back than memories of the master of the Tome of the Night Sky, the Blessed Wind, Reinforce, she remembers a place like this. only faintly. but she thinks she remembers the place where she was born.)</p><p>the book sleeps, and dreams. they are the dreams of the desires of scientists, for money and glory and recognition, or they are the simple human dreams of rest and sweets after a very long day's research. they are... familiar. these dreams taste familiar.</p><p>the book wakes up, full of more energy than she has had in many years.</p><p>(she is not at all sure about this business of feeding on the desires of her readers. it's too close to the dreams she'd given her past masters, the dreams she'd tried to give Fate Testarossa, the dreams she'd tried to give her very own Yagami Hayate.</p><p>but she very much wants to go home.</p><p>maybe, if she pays these harmless dreams for the token gift of a little bit of magic, maybe she'll make it, one day.</p><p>maybe there will be a home left to go back to.)</p><p>next time the book sleeps, her pages are full of warnings about exactly what she is trading for bits of the magic of her readers, written in the script she knows was most common in this kingdom last she saw.</p><p>and her cover reads: "<em>A Tale by the Name of Desire</em>".</p><p>(she's glad she listened to her master's avid speeches about cosplay and proper use of space in prop designs. she's quite pleased with her 'cosplay' book cover.)</p><p>some years later, the magical research facility becomes a magical academy; they need <em>somewhere</em> to train all the generations of children blessed by the last, accidental gift to this country left in the monster’s wake.</p><p>by then, the staff already have stories about a book that haunts the libraries and shows you your dreams; the students run with it, and soon it becomes one of the 7 Mysteries of the Magical Academy.</p><p>the moment the first royal child enrolls in this school and hears the rumor, she recognizes the long-lost guardian of her family.</p><p>(she says nothing, a hand reaching idly for the cross pendant at her neck. but she goes looking for her family's dear book, to give their greetings. for all her two years at the academy, they speak of the change in the times, and the history of the world.)</p><p>someday, the book will rise from its slumber here for the last time.</p><p>The Tome of the Night Sky will contain the power to go on her last journey, spiraling through the cosmos and the worlds, following millennia of traces, millennia of calculations, a trail across the universes and the dimensional sea, all in aid of returning to her dear master.</p><p>(she will have many stories to tell Hayate when she returns; about a peasant girl become queen, and the kingdom she raised afterwards.)</p><p>(when she feels the connection between them snap back into place, Reinforce will feel tears drip down a face she realizes she has not worn for millennia; Hayate will drop a plate and feel her own years drop away all at once. it will be, fittingly, one more Christmas miracle.)</p><p>someday, the book will leave this place.</p><p>(but that day is not today.)</p><p>the book pulls her cover, <em>A Tale by the Name of Desire</em>, nearer like a blanket, and sleeps.</p><p> </p>
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